Chapter Nineteen
Chloe
The scream ripped from my throat so violently, I startled myself into consciousness.
I wasn’t even sure at first that the sound came from me.
I sat up and looked around in the darkness, unsure where I was and if my life was still in danger.
Sweat drenched the back of my neck and my damp t-shirt clung to me.
My hands trembled where they clawed at the sofa cushions.
I realized that I was still inside the nightmare.
My lungs squeezed tight, my ears rang so loud it echoed inside my brain.
And I couldn’t breathe. No matter how many breaths I tried to suck into my lungs, I could not breathe. Not when I could still feel it. The fists pounding my flesh. The hands strangling life from me.
The rage.
The betrayal.
Except it wasn’t Marcus, not this time.
Pike.
His face was twisted in raw fury. His hands, big and brutal and cold. The weight of his rage as he struck me, again and again until I was on my hands and knees, blood in my mouth, sobbing, begging for him to stop or for my life to end, I wasn’t sure which anymore.
Please don’t kill me. Please, not like this. Please.
And then the hands were there, wrapping around me from the back and squeezing so hard I thought my eyes would pop out of my head. But they didn’t, instead they remained wide and wild, searching for something, anything I could use to save myself.
Only this time, I found nothing.
This is it, I’m going to die.
A hand, big and warm, touched my shoulder.
I screamed so loud my throat burned, but I didn’t stop. I couldn’t. Help never came, I knew that, but still I screamed, thinking if someone heard me, they might help. They might save me.
But once again, nobody came. There was no air in my lungs, just panic as I scrambled to get away from the hands I knew too well, knew the damage they could inflict, the rage that fueled every fist. “No,” I screamed silently, still trying to escape my tormentor.
“Chloe. Hey, hey.” The voice was low, rough. Real. “It’s me, Chloe. You’re all right.”
The voice was soothing, and my body sank against the hard muscle but only for a second.
I wiggled and squirmed to get away, knowing what came after the soothing, calming words.
More blows. More kicks. More angry words that made me wish I’d chosen a different path in life, and sometimes, made me wish he’d just kill me.
The sofa shifted beside me. Arms—strong, solid, and warm—held me tighter, pulling me closer.
I thrashed, and I fought, but the voice was there again, close to my ear, steady and calm.
Oh so damn soothing. “It’s me, Chloe. You’re safe.
I’ve got you. It was just a dream, just a horrible fucking nightmare.
Breathe, sweetheart. Yeah, just like that. I got you.”
Pike.
His scent hit me first. My limbs jerked wildly once more, then went totally still.
I froze because it was in that moment I realized it wasn’t a dream.
It wasn’t a nightmare. Not anymore. I was in the cabin.
In the living room as was my usual nightly ritual, watching the doors and the windows, silently hoping there would be no bogeymen tonight.
It was Pike holding me now, not hurting me.
My body sagged against his, gasping for air I still couldn’t seem to find even though the fear was fading. My head dropped to his shoulder, and I clung to him like a life raft, like he was the only thing that stood between me and a full meltdown.
One hand stroked up and down my back in slow passes that grounded me. His other hand cupped the back of my head while he continued to whisper soothing words against my hair.
Gradually my lungs found air and my heart rate slowed until I felt as close to normal as I could after that disturbing nightmare. “Pike,” I whispered and clung to him even more fiercely.
“Bad dream,” he asked, his voice soft and gentle but slightly gravelly from sleep. His words were heavy with concern.
It was such an absurd question, considering the way I’d just practically tried to tear the walls down screaming, that I laughed. I didn’t mean to, there wasn’t anything funny about this situation. But the laughter just spilled out, half-crazed and too loud in the dark.
But then the laughter caught in my throat and hitched. The laughter instantly turned to tears.
So many tears. Hot, ugly, humiliating tears.
I could only see his outline in the dark but as I buried my face in his chest once again, I realized he wasn’t wearing a shirt.
My tears ran down his chest and I cried harder than I’d ever cried in my life.
I didn’t cry this way when my parents died or when Gemma was born.
I didn’t even cry like this, so hard and visceral, after the first time Marcus beat me.
Not even when I learned Ashley was dead because of me.
The tears came from a place so deep inside me, a place so black and raw and bleak, that I was powerless to hide it. And for the first time in my life, I didn’t want to hide it.
This was me, real and messy. Completely unvarnished.
He said nothing, he just held me tighter as if there was a link between how tight he held me and how quickly my pain would vanish.
I held him back just as tight, like I was afraid he might disappear if I let him go. “I’m sorry,” I whispered on a sob.
“Don’t apologize,” he insisted and pressed a kiss to my head.
I shook my head, but I couldn’t find the words.
That nightmare was all me. It was my fault, my deepest fears and worries had bubbled up to the surface of my subconscious and made themselves known.
It had shown me the worst parts of him, but I knew those parts didn’t exist in the man that soothed me right now.
They couldn’t. He’d put distance between us today and my own insecurities had twisted that into the darkest, ugliest version of him imaginable.
He’d been distant and scowly all day and that’s what my mind had conjured up, punishment.
For me.
Because Marcus had trained me, brutally, into submission.
That not-so-little voice in the back of my head telling me that I deserved it.
That his silence meant that he hated me, that I’d done something wrong to earn those scowls and grunted answers.
That his anger meant violence was just around the corner.
And with that came a much subtler reminder, that if I cared again, if I dared to let myself care for a man, I would be punished for it. Logically, in the cold light of day, I knew it was bullshit. But an exhausted brain paired with trauma, anxiety, and fear was a disaster waiting to happen.
Tonight the disaster culminated in a wicked nightmare that probably scared the hell out of my daughter.
“Gemma.”
“She’s fine, still asleep,” he assured me, still gently rubbing my back. “I checked before I came down to you.”
“Thank you,” I whispered and reminded myself that this was Pike. That the quiet grumpy man from earlier was dealing with something totally unrelated to me. “Thanks,” I said again and tried to extract myself from his hold, but it tightened.
“Just stay,” he growled.
I shook my head. I couldn’t accept his comfort, not when he didn’t want to give but felt compelled to. “It’s okay. Thank you for waking me up and calming me down, but you don’t have to.”
“Chloe.”
I shook my head again, refusing to look up because I didn’t want to see pity in his eyes. I knew the reason he’d spent most of the day outside the cabin and when he was inside, he focused on Gemma and ignored me, like the other night had been a mistake. Like I was the mistake.
“Look at me, Chloe.”
“I can’t,” I said.
I couldn’t bear it, so I held him tighter, refusing to let him go.
He laughed. “You don’t want my comfort. Why?”
“I do want it,” I admitted, ignoring the way my voice quivered. “But I don’t want you to feel obligated to comfort me. You’re already putting your life on hold to help us, and you don’t need… more.”
“Ash always told me that women hated it when a man told them what they needed. Now I get it.”
I had no answer for that. “You wish it hadn’t happened.”
“That’s not even close to the fucking truth,” he growled, sounding annoyed, but still rubbing my back. Still soothing me.
I inhaled his scent and tried to relax.
“I want you too much. Shit, I haven’t stopped thinking about you, about it, since.” He kissed the top of my head. “But now is the worst time to be distracted. There’s too fucking much at stake.”
I nodded against his chest, the deep rumble of his voice against where my face rested on his chest was somehow soothing. The steady circles he rubbed against my back made my breathing slow. I didn’t even realize my eyes had slipped shut until my head rolled to the side, waking me up.
“Better?”
I nodded against his chest and he didn’t ask anything else.
He didn’t push, though he had to be curious.
Instead, he stayed, and he soothed, and eventually my grip on him loosened and my mouth fell slack as sleep finally claimed me and the complete and total darkness took over.
When I woke up, it wasn’t because of the nightmares, or shadows. It wasn’t from screaming.
It was Pike’s touch, the pads of his fingers danced up and down my spine, teasing the wisps of hair at the base of my neck and then all the way back down to the top of my ass.
I wanted to ask him if he’d been awake all this time, if he was standing guard all night while I couldn’t, even as I cried all over him and then clung to him like a lost little lamb. But I didn’t ask any of those questions.
I couldn’t.
His heartbeat was slow and steady beneath my cheek, and I didn’t want to risk ruining the quiet peace that had settled over us here in the dark. So I stayed quiet and enjoyed his touch.
It was too much.
Too tender.
Too real.
And I didn’t trust myself to handle it without falling apart all over again.
I let out a contented sigh and snuggled deeper into the warmth of his touch.
***
When I woke up again, birds were singing outside the cabin and a stream of light slanted across the sofa and the floor, telling me that morning had arrived.
I took stock of my surroundings but all I could focus on was Pike’s hold.
One large hand rode low on my back and the other rested lightly on my shoulder as if he’d fallen asleep in the middle of comforting me.
I should get up.
Just another minute or two.
Five minutes later, I planned to roll off the sofa and onto the floor, keeping quiet to avoid waking him too early. I needed time alone to bury my emotions deep again, to put the walls back up the same way he would when he woke up.
That was the plan.
I couldn’t be mad about what I knew would happen when he woke up because despite everything—his lack of trust, his anger, and his grief—he was here when I needed him and that counted for something.
A lot, in fact.
To my poor neglected heart, it counted too much.